Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Heute war ein ordentlicher Tag. Ich mag die Veränderungen an der Strecke, sie ist nun flüssiger und macht mehr Spaß. Es geht eng zwischen uns allen zu und die relative Pace ist noch eine kleine Unbekannte. Aber ich bin mir sicher, dass es genauso wie in den vergangenen Rennen super eng wird. Das Auto fühlt sich nicht allzu schlecht an. Wir befanden uns zu Beginn des ersten Trainings in einer guten Position, danach wurde es aber etwas schlechter. Im zweiten Training war es durch die Änderungen, die wir vorgenommen haben, wieder ein bisschen besser. Jetzt müssen wir die Daten analysieren und herausfinden, wie wir uns weiter verbessern können. Das Ziel ist ständig in Bewegung. Auf meinem Long Run versuchte ich, dem Vordermann zu folgen, aber das ist hier immer noch nicht einfach. Es sollte jedoch besser sein als in der Vergangenheit. Alles in allem fühle ich mich gut, ich fühle mich körperlich wohl und wir konnten einige positive Fortschritte bei der Abstimmung erzielen. Diese Arbeit werden wir heute Abend fortsetzen, um sie weiter zu perfektionieren und morgen noch stärker zurückzukommen.

It’s been quite a productive Friday learning the new Abu Dhabi layout, which proved to be quite challenging in many aspects. I had a close call in FP1, similar to where Kimi went off in FP2, so you have to be careful pushing the limits there. Some of the new parts are quite tricky, so it’s important to keep getting dialled into these corners. Some of the areas on the track with new tarmac are interesting and learning the changes there will be important in understanding how the tyres behave. So far, we have both cars in the top ten, which is decent and that is the aim for tomorrow. It always looks cool to be in the higher positions and we ended in second place today, which has a nice sound to it. We’ll remain realistic, though, and keep up our hard work.

Es war schön, heute ein Gefühl für die umgebaute Strecke zu erhalten. Der Kurs fühlt sich besser an als zuvor. Alles ist flüssiger und es gibt ein paar bessere Überholmöglichkeiten. Als ich neben die Strecke abgekommen bin, spürte ich wie staubig es neben der Linie ist. Ich kam vor der Kurve nur ein bisschen zu sehr auf die Kerbs und zahlte in der nächsten Kurve den Preis dafür. Aber es war ein schöner Drift!

Zwischen den beiden Trainings haben wir einige Änderungen am Auto vorgenommen. Danach fühlte es sich besser an. Alles in allem fühle ich mich im Cockpit wohl, aber keine der Runden heute war fantastisch. Wir sollten noch nachlegen können. Wir hatten einen vernünftigen Long Run auf den Medium-Reifen und das Auto war darauf konstant. Dabei konnte man spüren, dass die neuen schnelleren Kurven die Hinterachse etwas mehr als zuvor belasten. Heute Abend liegt noch einiges an Arbeit vor uns, damit wir für morgen vorbereitet sind.
 

I like the new track layout, it’s more fun to drive with the faster corners especially in the last sector. We made a few changes to the set up across the two sessions and I do think they are positive. We are still learning and understanding a few things. The short run didn’t go to plan, we are lacking a bit of pace but I think the long runs were more competitive so that’s important. I’m looking forward to qualifying tomorrow to put it all together.

I don’t know how much the track has improved since last year. It’s still nice to drive but there are question marks for me on whether it has improved the racing. I think we have some work to do overnight after today’s sessions. We ran very different set-ups across the two cars, so we've got plenty of information that we need to go through in detail and pick out the best parts for qualifying. There will be learnings to take forward into our final practice session so we can look to qualify strongly on Saturday.

It was a good Friday for us and I liked the track changes out there. It’s the third consecutive weekend that we discovered a new circuit on Friday, so it means we get to play around a little out on track and try different lines to find the lap time. We maximised our time on track today in both sessions and my fastest time was deleted in Free Practice 2, so there was a little bit more than what was shown on the final timings. While we still need to fine tune a few things on the setup, I think we can look back on a good day for us and we have more to come tomorrow.

I’ve already driven here for the Young Driver Test last year and of course knowing the track beforehand always helps with my approach to the weekend, which hasn’t always been the case this season. I’m really enjoying the new layout of this circuit, we’ve still got some things to work on but I think the pace so far is quite good. We’ve got a lot of data across the two cars, so we’re in a good position to continue to improve tomorrow. My aim is to get through to Q3 in Quali again, as we’re looking quite strong here and then our race pace is looking good also, so we just need to put it altogether when it counts.

I quite like the new layout and it was fun to drive. The modifications seem to make it easier to follow the cars ahead, so it appears to be a positive track update.
The track evolution was quite big over the course of the day, but that’s more down to the temperature as it becomes much cooler here in the evenings. This helps us to gain grip. Tyre degradation is quite high but I think our car is reacting well to this circuit so far.
In terms of pace, we did a good job with the race simulation and still have a little work to do to prepare for qualifying. We are lacking a bit there compared to some of our closest competitors and I hope we can put it all together for tomorrow.

It’s been a challenging day here in Abu Dhabi with the new track layout and surface, making it very different to any other year we’ve driven here in the past.
It’s been a very difficult Friday because since FP1 I wasn’t feeling at home in the car and I’ve been chasing the balance the whole day. That’s quite unusual because we’ve been starting on the right foot pretty much every weekend and today, I feel we have a lot of homework to do, going into Saturday.
We will now sit down with the engineers, see where we can improve the car and hopefully find more performance for tomorrow.

The layout is really different, it feels like a new track with a lot more high-speed corners, so it’s really cool. We tried some different things with the car today, but I still haven’t felt that great, so we’ve got some work to do for tomorrow.

A decent day. I think we learned a lot. We maybe weren’t so quick, but the car felt relatively decent so I’m hoping tomorrow things will just click a little bit more and we’ll find some pace. So, a positive day I think. It’s also nice to drive the new circuit, there are quite a few differences – both in the layout but also how the tyres behave as well. It’s something else to get used to and we’ll have our guys and girls look at how to maximise everything, including the tyres and the set-up, going into qualifying tomorrow

We had a good start to our weekend and, overall, it was a good day. We made a decent improvement from FP1 to FP2 and if we can repeat it tonight, we should be in a good place for qualifying. The new track layout is quite cool, it’s more fun to drive as they replaced slow chicanes, which weren’t much fun in these cars, with some fast corners. I am not sure if this will help much with overtaking, but it’s a lot faster. Tomorrow will be interesting: we want to build on the strong result from Jeddah, the fight in the midfield will be close and everything will hinge on hundredths of a second, but I am confident we can have a good day.

A decent day. I think we learned a lot. We maybe weren’t so quick, but the car felt relatively decent so I’m hoping tomorrow things will just click a little bit more and we’ll find some pace. So, a positive day I think. It’s also nice to drive the new circuit, there are quite a few differences – both in the layout but also how the tyres behave as well. It’s something else to get used to and we’ll have our guys and girls look at how to maximise everything, including the tyres and the set-up, going into qualifying tomorrow.

It is a good challenge to have the new circuit layout and it is faster and more exciting to drive. I think some of the weaker turns have been replaced with stronger corners – the highlight being the new banked Turn Nine. We are still learning the circuit, but it is a positive first impression. The goal now is to extract more from the car and finish qualifying for the year on a high tomorrow.

It was good to experience the new Yas Marina Circuit layout today. It is definitely faster and has more flow to it, which makes it cool and fun to drive. We were able to complete our programme today and put in some good laps. We have learned a lot across the two sessions, so now it is about reviewing the data and trying to extract some more performance ahead of qualifying tomorrow.

It had been a normal Friday until the last lap. We have been trying things, seeing what happens and what works, as we always do: we had finished nearly all our work when I had my accident. I just lost the rear in a place where there wasn’t any run-off and went into the wall: these things happen. It was interesting to try the track after the modifications. Making changes is good and I can see why they were done, but I am not sure whether overtaking will be any easier. In the end, it is what it is, it’s different and we’ll have to adapt.

It was interesting trying out the circuit changes and I have to say I liked them. The track is now faster and flowing and therefore nicer to drive. Ultimately though, it all comes down to lap time. I was a little bit off the pace today, but I still felt that my laps were pretty decent nevertheless. We've got a bit of work to do to close the gap to Alfa Romeo and the midfield cars ahead tonight, but I think there is more lap time to come from me and it's only natural that you find more lap time throughout the weekend. The aim is to qualify well tomorrow; we will be working hard tonight to do that and end the season on a high.

It was really nice to be back in the car after such a long break and to feel the progress that’s been made across the last year. I spent a lot of time making sure I was on top of the car’s set-up and various procedures, but everything went very smoothly and I was happy that we collected some valuable data. The car felt good to drive around the updated track layout and I was pleased with the pace today. I think the team will make some good progress over the next few sessions, so hopefully it’ll be a good race to finish off the season on Sunday.

It’s good to be back at Yas Marina Circuit. I think the updated track does suit our car slightly more; it’s definitely better fun to drive and has a nicer flow to it. I believe that it will help with the racing too, so hopefully we’re in a position to take advantage of that on Sunday.

I had an incident at Turn 13 in FP2 and damaged the end plates of the rear wing, but the guys and girls in the garage did a great job to get me back out there so I could continue with the session. I was struggling a bit with the balance of the car in FP1; we made some slight adjustments going into FP2 which did help a bit, but there was a problem with a rear damper that we weren’t able to resolve during the session. We’ll get that fixed tonight and continue to work through the data, so we should be in a stronger position heading into Saturday.

Overall, it went well – I got to learn the new track which is a bit different to before but in general it hasn’t changed much. It has the same philosophy in terms of approach to some of the corners although obviously the corner itself is very different. It’s dark, we have all the lights on, so it’s different and I enjoy driving here. There are different lines you can take, especially at T9, so I think there will be variations over the lap and overtaking should become easier. I think we’re closer than we were at the beginning of the year with those ahead.

I like Abu Dhabi – I like this track and obviously it’s got a slightly modified layout this season. It was interesting to get a few laps in and it was quite smooth with no issues, just working on the set-up as a standard first-time Friday. I loved Abu Dhabi the way it was – it had 21 corners from what I believe, and now it has 16 so it’s a slightly shorter track that I love but nevertheless I think it’s a good one.